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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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y& THIS Ii ^ l I ^^ B . _ _ . > pN ^ 3-28 S / B 3 a ? 64 a ^
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sensitive man engaged in some question where a lady is concerned , are ^ ruestions in which the dispute cannot be brought to a conclusion . But all aien are brave , all gentlemen are expected to be amenable to the summons oflionour ; and in the resort to the duel , -the gentleman whose position is equivocal , and promises him no proper award , transfers the dispute to a groundxMi -which the common sense of honour is supposed to exist on a footing of wealth * and leads to a conclusion rough enough , but equally recognised on , both , sides ; ¦ , It is plain , however , that much m all cases depends upon the motives of the men who are engaged ; and the greatest defect in the book before us is , that it offers very little indication of the real motives of the men engaged in the modern duels . The bare record of facts it gives being nothing better than newspaper compilation . If a good history were given what a
panorama of plot and passion it would present . Some of the most romantic stories in the world are connected with duels . The omitted ^ story of the iPawcett and Munro encounter is an instance ; another , omitted case ( but which being Irish and not very notorious to modern students the author may be excused for not knowing ) is that of a duel very celebrated in its day , in -which Arthur O'Connor and Rowland Cashel , two gentlemen of Retry , were the combatants . A feud broke out between the families . Arthur O'Connor was a cadet of his house ; a fine young fellow eighteen years old * and the " couled darling" of his circle . Rowland Cashel was a middle-aged man , sedate , respectable , and of hi g h breeding . ^ O'Connor thoughtlessly insulted Cashel in the streets by flinging his glove in his face and taunting , the whole family with cowardice—a taunt that had some sting , as the Cashels had for some days treated with calmness a series of little
outrages by the other " party , " Rowland Cashel resolved to put an end to the annoyance , and he quietly sent word to the O'Connor family , overlooking li boy Arthur , " that some one of them should fight in satisfaction for the continued insults . Arthur O'Connor insisted on taking up the insult , notwithstandinghis youth ahdvthe clamours of his male friends against a boy of eighteen , fresh from school , fighting a duel . One person of all his family urged himiq . fight—his mother—a stern old lady , ardent and proud , full of aflection for her boy , but with a predominant pride in his beauty and valour . She put the pistol into his : hand as he left the house after breakfast to fight , tellin g him to come back with honour or not at all . The morning was fine : the whole town ( Tralee ) had heard of the duel ; people on foot and people in carriages werethere 1 to see . A few magistrates , who might have arrested ^ he" combatantswere on the ground , but did not interfere . ( This was in
. , the jsear 1818 , if wemistake not ;) Arthur O'Connor was first on the ground , dressed in a suit of black , with the coat open , disclosing a stainless ^ ett ' sh ^ rt- ^ otitl Rowland Gashel was plainly dressed in a brown surtout . The ttomb&tants were placed , the word given , and O'Connor fired , without efltefistr TKe smoke fromhis pistol blew towards Cashel . Cashel waited for ten seconds , then took aim , and firing deliberately , sent a bullet through the lungs of the unhappy young man . An eye-witness of the scene described to us with painful minuteness young O'Connor , pale , firm , and still sensible , borne away on a door , and brought home to his mother , who received her s # n with an outburst of intolerant grief . Cashel'fled for his life , hunted by the populace . In a few weeks he was arrested and tried . The jury were inclined to convict , but a judge ( suspected of partiality ) directed his acquittal , and he lived to be an old and venerated man .
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THE CRIMEAN ENTERPRISE . The Crimean Enterprise . What should have been done and what might be done . Predictions and Plans . By Captain Gleig , 92 nd Highlanders . Blacfcwood . Oaptain Gjceig' is a young officer who , about this time last year , undertook to enlighten the readers of the Morning Herald on the subject of the war , teach stategy to Lord Raglan , and confound the Minister . His qualifications for the task were some military information gleaned from the study of great campaigns , not a bad qualification if modestly used , a strong partisan feeling in favour , of Mr . Disraeli as war minister , and the fact that he was , as he signed himself , " an officer who had never seen a shot fired . " The reader will , therefore , be quite prepared to find that the hero of " the Crimean Enterprise" is not Lord Raglan , Marshal St . Arnaud , or any other French or British worthy , but that modest young soldier , Captain Gleig , 92 nd Highlanders" who never saw a shot fired . "
, But how shall we describe or do justice to his book ? How shall we appreciate that unfortunate coincidence , that a condemnation of the strategy , tactics , and everything connected with the Crimean enterprise , with detailed statements when the siege should have been raised , sees the light and appeals to the public , at the very moment when the allied armies are reaping , the fruits of a year ' s labour and warfare in the forts and arsenals of Sebftstopol ? The book itself is a collection of letters published from time to time in the Morning Herald , with a running commentary subsequently composed . They are presumptuous , but ingenious ; they show much talent and some study , but more vanity than either ; and we frankly confess our inability to conceive how any man , much less an officer , should have persuaded hitnsclf into the impropriety of reprinting them bound and . lettered in red and crold . Had he no friends ?
were always in the wake of his columns ; he had not to trouble himself about what the enemy would do , because . he could place them in such , a position as would give them the alternative of dying of thirst on one side , " or d ^ ing of hunger on another , by virtue of a scientifically conceived " dduble . ihterio * line of operations . " . In short , he had nothing whatever to do with the realities of the war , and made a surprising and industrious use of his advantages . " V What shall we say , for instance , of an officer who talks glibly about Omar Pacha ' s " pressing the Russians in Bessarabia" while the allied army landed at Perekop , above all other places in the world ? What shall we say to the geographical knowledge of an officer who threatened the Allies last year with an attack from an army advancing on Balaklava by Aloushta and the WoronzofF-road along the undereliff ? Yet such are his speculations . And although some of the criticisms of the Jomini of the Morning Herald are not injudicious , yet in the main they oscillate between a preposterous vanity and very considerable ignorance . We have not space to devote to any minute examination of the plans of Captain Gleig ; but the reader may be amused by some specimens of his unsuspecting vanity . He proposed , as our readers well remember , General Macintosh had proposed before him , the plan of a campaign having K affa as a basis ; and he presents us with a nicely-drawn diagram representing the predicament in which the Russians would have been placed had his plans been followed . It shows the allied army marching on a " double interior line" upon Sebastopol from Kafia ^ and on one side of the columns are these words— " The Eussians blockaded . Here they die of hunger / ' arid on the other—¦ " The Russians pursued . Here they die of thirst . " Subsequently somebody said—that is a plan proposed by General Macintosh long , long ago . . Whereupon , in a nervous tremour , he says : " I beg emphatically to assure the public that I am entitled to the credit of originating this plan . " What do the public care about the matter ? Again , on June 2 , 1855 , he writes to the Morning Herald : ¦ — Throughout the whole of the Crimean war I have taken , as you are aware , _ an accurate although a comprehensive view of the position and prospects of both armies ; and I shall shortly feel myself entitled to publish a plan of campaign [ that is the Kaffa plan ] which early in December last I submitted to an eminent statesman , not in office [ Lord Ellenborough ?] , and which will be found to bear a remarkable resemblance to that which appeared lately in the Moniteur . He says in his preface : " My predictions have become , with the exceptions noted , history . " Unfortunately we cannot agree in this sanguine estimate of the prophetical powers of Captain Gleig , as displayed in the little volume before us .
Wje do not for a moment question the right of Captain Gloig , or any other officer . or gentleman , to speculate and dictate on the subject of the war . It is a Briton ' s proud privilege to have and to express his opinion upon all things . But , then , every man of them must take the consequences of his temerity . Captain Gleig , in framing plans of campaigns , had these advantages over the generals who conducted thorn—he was not hampered by questions respecting tlie number of men at his disposal , because he could assume that he had enough to perform all he required ; , ho was not oppressed by a sense of the di ffi culties of the country before and around him , because had he hot the map at his right hand , and did not all " lines" " bases" and " zones" operation he might fancy look extremely feasible P His comprehensive mind had not to care for supplies , because he could assume that supplies
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BLENHAM . Blenham ; or , What Came of Troubling the Waters ' . A Story Founded on Facts . By : E . Elliott . ' ¦ ¦ •¦' ¦ - — W . Cash . Earnestness can do wonders ,, and it has made Church-rates perform in Mrs . Elliot ' s romance the part which the offended deity of classic romance performed . The impost is the dread destiny which brings about the catastrophe . Blenham is a village divided against itself , as the house of Mr . Dunning is divided against tlself ; and in each case , by the intrusion of an individual who is the incarnation of a principle . There . are dissenters in the village , who object to church-rates , not on economical , but on conscientious grounds ; an invitation brings to the village a young lawyer , who is a politician and amateur who ^ cB me wjuiuwukj * v * .. j
. a literary , anu sua *^* foundations with a series of lectures on the debated impost . His lectures are printed ; they circulate ; they reassure the timid , convert the wavering , and the church-rate is in danger . In the bosom of Mr . Dunning ' famil y lives a young lady , Clara , who enjoys an income derived from some mysterious source , owns democratic opinions , and has doubts on the subject of rates ; but she is debarred by her guardian from hearing or seeing the lecturer . The parsonage is enlivened by the return of the clergyman ' s son , a travelled " gent ., " who brings back a smattering of continental tongues , talks in a maccaronic lingo , and makes such love to Clara as incarnate conventionalism makes to lovely non-conventionalism . One day , Dunning iunior encounters a college friend , whom he hospitably drags into his
father ' s house , not a little proud to display a creditable friendship : the visitor proves to be Holmesdale , the lecturer against church-rates , the rival of the clergyman in parish , influence , and of the son in the favour of Clara ; and the reader perceives the turning points of the situation . Under the cheering influence of Holmosdalo , humble tradesmen are emboldened to hold controversy with the clerical authorities on the things which are Caesar ' s and those which are not ; and the arguments for and against church-rates are dramatised . This is a form of carrying on the war which always endsm victory ; but although as telling a fiction has more than once vindicated the from alien the
right of the Established Church to levy offerings sources , victory really remains with Mrs . Elliot . So it must always be with those who write on the proper side . " The lion would have been victor , says the King of Beasts to the Traveller , in the fable , " if the statue had been made by a lion ; " but lions are not sculptors , bless their souls , and have not the gift of making statues . The very misfortune of Mrs . Elliot is that she is too much in the " right : her book is the offering of an earnest lover of truth and justice to a righteous cause—which has already been won . Sir William Clay and Ministers have set down church-rates for abolition at the first convenient opportunity ; and wo do not need an octavo to convince anybody that they ought to be abolished . The true literary feat would be to write a book by winch church-rates could be preserved .
, The success of an author must bo estimated by the proposed aim . n Mrs . Elliot moans to induce people to read arguments on the subject oi church rates , probably she will succeed ; only , besides the anachronism 01 producing the plea when , the cause is won , there is the question whether anything is gained by dressing up arguments in fiction , which spoils them for the class that will work out the argument , and forces them on the attention of those whose activity ceases with the perusal of the volume from the circulating library or tho book club . Although Blenham is imaginary , we are told , the events aro real ; and we ' can believe it . A certain charm tnac
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 29, 1855, page 944, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2108/page/20/
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